


opening lines of communication

by youcouldmakealife



Series: between the teeth [12]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-11
Updated: 2014-05-11
Packaged: 2018-01-24 07:30:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1596659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You’re the worst,” Jake says, and David might take offense if Jake didn’t say it like a compliment. “Do you want to go on a date?”</p><p>“A date,” David repeats slowly.</p><p>“Yeah,” Jake says. “A date. You know what those are, right?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	opening lines of communication

**Author's Note:**

> This is for whiskers, and their incredible generosity. Seriously, I am speechless, and since you wanted the next part of Rivals, lo, it has come into being!

David takes it as a good sign when Jake starts up the stream of texting again, borderline illiterate as it is. It starts with _good talk :)_ , which David rolls his eyes at but can’t avoid smiling about, and continues from there. 

_what do u like 2 do?_ Jake sends one afternoon about a week in, and David scrutinizes the text for a moment, trying to figure out if there’s something he’s missing. Finally he types out _Hockey_ , even if it’s kind of an obvious answer, shoves his phone in his pocket.

It buzzes almost immediately, and David ignores it for about ten seconds before he’s pulling it back out.

 _duh :P_ , the text reads, then, _my other favorite sport is football_

 _I like tennis._ , David sends, because that seems like what Jake’s prompting from him, and that opens the floodgates, Jake sending him random texts about his favourite book or band, and so on and so on. 

The information Jake sends is alternately asinine or obvious, and sometimes both. David doesn’t know how the fact that Jake’s favourite colour is red is supposed to inform their friendship, and he already knows Jake’s favourite foods, shows, types of movies, picked it up without realising while in Toronto.

He obediently replies when Jake sends his though, even if it takes a little time. Jake sent him a text saying _no hockey aloud!! :P_ when David had offered up a hockey movie that came out when they were kids as a favourite. He couldn’t think of another, didn’t really waste his time watching movies, finally scrambling for the last decent movie he could think of. Doesn’t realise until he sent the text where he’d seen it, and then he remembers he’d had to rewatch it in his hotel room last summer because he’d spent half of the movie with Jake’s tongue in his mouth.

He blushed to the roots of his hair, but if Jake remembers not watching it with him, he doesn’t say anything, just bounces along to favourite TV shows, which David is similarly stumped on.

Eventually Jake seems to run out of favourite things, but then he just moves onto facts: sisters’ names and ages, childhood pets, things that David has no match for. And firsts--broken bones, city away from home, European country. First ‘real’ kiss, ‘when u thot girls had cooties it dosnt count :)’ : _jessica henry i wuz 12 she wuz 13 ;)_ , and maybe David overstated Jake’s experience a little in his head, but there’s a pretty massive difference between twelve and nineteen. David knows he wasn’t a virgin to guys or girls, that’s obvious from the reputation and the ease he seemed to do everything with, but he doesn’t want to _know_.

David had kissed before he kissed Jake, he was a junior hockey player in Quebec, there was no way his teammates would have let it stand otherwise. And he doesn’t think girls have _cooties_ , he’s not _five_ , but the first time he’d been kissed was at a house party, some girl who’d pretty much been shoved at him and drunkenly went with it. She’d smelled like rubbing alcohol and could barely keep her eyes open, and David had wanted to be sick, wanted to push her off, but he didn’t do anything because his team was there, didn’t really kiss back but didn’t pull away, not until her hand had landed on his belt--in a crowded fucking _room_ \--and he’d caught her by the wrist and shoved her off, too hard, maybe, because he was about the opposite of hard, and the last thing he needed was for that to be known.

If that was his first real kiss--

It wasn’t. Even the humiliation of kissing Jake and expecting to get punched was better than that. 

He can’t send the truth. Can’t send a lie, because he can’t lie, he’s a terrible liar. And he can’t just send nothing, because he always responds, and then Jake thinks up something new and sends him another text. That’s how this works. Even so, he puts it off, puts his phone away, and it’s not he gets back to his hotel room after a tight win he checks his phone again, three texts, one from the afternoon saying, _u there?_ , one from during the game saying _nice assist!_ , and one from ten minutes ago saying _u dont have to answer_.

But it’s humiliating, Jake letting him off because he knows it’s embarrassing, of course it’s embarrassing, it’s David. So of course it’s embarrassing. He doesn’t know if he’s angry or not, doesn’t quite understand how he feels about it, Jake letting him off because obviously David’s answer will be terrible, but there’s a stab of vindication running through him when he types out _It was you._ , since that’s the truth in the end, because Jake said first _real_ kiss. He sends it. It disappears almost immediately, just leaves the humiliation, and David turns his phone off so he doesn’t have to look at what Jake says. Doesn’t have to see if Jake doesn’t say anything.

He turns his phone on the next morning, because not knowing may be worse than whatever Jake says, though David isn’t sure of that. His phone is silent as it starts up, and his stomach’s sinking when a message pops up, sent that minute, like Jake put off the answer as long as David put off his.

 _ur the first guy 2 fuck me_ , it reads. _idk if its the same_.

It blindsides him. Maybe Jake isn’t fucking every guy he calls a ‘buddy’, but he was far from inexperienced, it was obvious, and David just--assumed. At the time, and after, and thinking about the way it was, obviously his first time but apparently Jake’s too, mouth acrid with defeat, taking it out on Jake--he’s ashamed for the first time in awhile. Enough that he sends _Sorry I was a dick about it_ within the minute, not even caring if that makes it look like he was checking his texts constantly, which he wasn’t.

 _i like u ne way :)_ , Jake sends back ten seconds later, and David smiles all the way to practice, only manages to school his face when Kurmazov starts giving him weird looks.

*

David’s getting ready for practice when his phone rings, and he looks at it askance, since his parents would both be at work. His teammates text, and his agent emails to figure out a good time to call. He isn’t any less confused when he sees Jake’s name, because Jake’s never called him before. 

“Hello?” he answers cautiously, because it’s as likely to be a teammate of Jake’s prank-calling or something if Jake’s got David’s full name in his contact list. 

“Hey,” he hears, and it’s definitively Jake. David relaxes a little, but not much, tries to think back to the last few texts, whether he said something he shouldn’t have. Since it’s mostly been about the upcoming basketball playoffs, he doesn’t think so, unless Jake’s really passionate about the Pistons. He seems pretty insane about the Lions, considering how terrible they are, so David can’t discount that.

“Okay, so I can’t do this by text,” Jake says, “and like, phone kind of sucks too, but you’re like, a thousand miles away, so.”

“So?” David asks.

“You know how we’re playing in a week?” Jake asks. 

David thinks that might be a rhetorical question, but he answers, “Yes,” just in case he’s wrong.

“So that’s one of the Panthers’ last games,” Jake says. David bites back telling him he knows that. It seems like it’s saying too much, though it’s not exactly hard to look at a team schedule.

“Okay,” he says instead.

“Can I take you out?” Jake asks.

“You want to get drinks or something?” David asks. 

“I--well, yeah, but.” Jake says, exhales hard against the receiver. “I’m screwing this up. Okay, what are you doing the day after we play?”

“I don’t know,” David says. “Practice, probably.”

“Then could I take you out after that?” Jake asks. “For dinner, or drinks, or whatever?”

“Don’t you have to go back that morning?” David asks. “You’re the captain.”

“I will,” Jake says. “But there’s a two day break after, and just. Dude.”

“Dude,” David repeats, dry.

“You’re the worst,” Jake says, and David might take offense if Jake didn’t say it like a compliment. “Do you want to go on a date?”

“A date,” David repeats slowly.

“Yeah,” Jake says. “A date. You know what those are, right?”

“Fuck off,” David says reflexively, then winces, but Jake doesn’t seem to take it personally, laughs, low and warm, into the receiver. 

“A date,” Jake repeats. “I want to date you. Is that cool?”

“I--” David says. “Yes. That’s cool.”

“Cool,” Jake says.

“I was just getting ready for practice,” David says awkwardly, when the silence stretches.

“Oh, am I interrupting the Chapman routine?” Jake asks. “I can go.”

“No,” David says. “I mean, you are, kind of, but. That’s fine. I can keep talking.”

“Cool,” Jake says, and maybe David’s imagining it, but he thinks he can hear Jake smiling.


End file.
